Comparing Dictionaries

> Barry,
>
>> Does Object>>= work on collections, specifically Dictionaries?
>> Reading the comment for = I suspect that it won't work. Is this
>> correct?
>
> Yes and No. :-)
>
> #= does work sensibly for some collections e.g. SequenceableCollection
> and it's subclasses which override Object>>=.
>
> It doesn't work as expected for Sets (Dictionaries) or Bags which use
> the Object implementation.
>
>> Failing the above, does Set>>equals: work on dictionaries,
>
> Not really. It only compares the Dictionaries values,  and gets a bit
> confused about that as it is expecting to be comparing Sets whose size
> will match.
> Probably not what you want :-)
>
> a := Dictionary new
>     at: $a put: 1;
>     at: $b put: 1;
>     at: $c put: 1;
>     yourself.
> b := Dictionary new
>     at: $x put: 1;
>     at: $y put: 2;
>     at: $z put: 3;
>     yourself.
> a equals: b ==> true
>
>> and if not could
>> anyone advise me on what the best way to compare two dictionaries is?
>
> Depends a bit on what you mean by compare (just keys, just values,
> keys and values, matching keys and values) but the easiest "one
> liners" I could think of that answers true if the keys and values in
> two Dictionaries match completely is -
>
> a := Dictionary new
>     at: $c put: 3;
>     at: $b put: 2;
>     at: $a put: 1;
>     yourself.
> b := Dictionary new
>     at: $a put: 1;
>     at: $b put: 2;
>     at: $c put: 3;
>     yourself.
>
> a associations asSet equals: b associations asSet
>
> or
>
> a associations asSortedCollection = b associations asSortedCollection
>
> Neither is too efficient, and the second obviously has some
> restrictions, but from my *limited* testing they appear to work?
>
> Regards
>     Ian
>
>